Verdict? Elemental Damage or Armor Ignore?

Discord is widely acknowledged to be crap because it is crap. ^^ Indeed

I use a single hero MM with 19 points death magic (11 minions) [aura+mas], and lots of mesmers

Discord blows totally these days.

^^ Indeed

I use a single hero MM with 19 points death magic (11 minions) [aura+mas], and lots of mesmers

Discord blows totally these days. So discord is crap eh? I am behind the times.

It works pretty well for me in most areas (DoA, UW) in HM.

Hmm, I have wanted to try the 3 mez build though. Maybe I will give it a shot.

Still seems like my original Q, about the HM armor, is still open for debate.

So discord is crap eh? I am behind the times.

It works pretty well for me in most areas (DoA, UW) in HM.

Hmm, I have wanted to try the 3 mez build though. Maybe I will give it a shot.

Still seems like my original Q, about the HM armor, is still open for debate. Literally hundreds of builds work in all HM areas of the game. Power Creep has gotten to the point where "good" builds are distinguished from the "bad" ones that by how quickly you can alt-tab out of guild wars to read facebook or w/e and leave the heroes to finish the battle.

Literally hundreds of builds work in all HM areas of the game. Power Creep has gotten to the point where "good" builds are distinguished from the "bad" ones that by how quickly you can alt-tab out of guild wars to read facebook or w/e and leave the heroes to finish the battle. But DoA HM isn't one of them.

That said, if you can post a screenshot of a DoA HM clear (any area except Veil, which is the easiest) or UW HM (which I don't know how to do without knocklock) sans consumables but using Discord, I want to see it.

As for this thread, I'm leaning to armour-ignoring damage at the moment, but we'll see.

Personally I think eles are good enough now so you can choose what you like better. Stop thinking all 'leet' and what kills 0.1s faster, go with what feels more fun to play. Same here. I'm going to be using 6-8 elly teams because I simply enjoy using them, even if I find that me / ne / rt is better.

Armour ignoring has always been better and still is. The reason why it works isnt based on whether it does more or less DPS, in any case the differecnes between armour ignoring and elemental damage are meaningless. I am disappointed to hear that. I haven't had as much chance to play and test things out this weekend as you guys.

Using the Mist Form build from Chthon, my ele team was doing so well in HM that it almost seems overpowering, even though I haven't tried it in the elite areas yet. Also I didn't rune them up properly as I don't intend to invest until I am convinced that the build is better than my current ones.

As long as Ele E-Management remains so clumsy, armor ignoring damage will be better. I can see slotting one Ele in the Hybrid Meta of today, but anything more and you'll need to jump straight to 5 DPS/3 Backline or you'll lose a ton of effectiveness. This is kinda what it boils down to for me. Eles are just about equal in damage now (maybe) but necros are so much more versatile, due to soul reaping.

I even thought about 3 necro/eles...just to get good energy flow!

I tried the 3 necro/3 mez build last night...its pretty darn good...

As long as Ele E-Management remains so clumsy, armor ignoring damage will be better. I can see slotting one Ele in the Hybrid Meta of today, but anything more and you'll need to jump straight to 5 DPS/3 Backline or you'll lose a ton of effectiveness. The trick is to not prolong fights. SF works great when its the only offensive spell on the eles bar... other than Glowing Gaze for energy management and Mark of Rodgort for sustained burning. Vqing with 3 SF is going to be up there with Mes/Ritway in the meta until you get to Destroyers.

I always take BiP in my caster 7H parties, and never have any problems with it. Its certainly not suicidal, even if brought on a resto healer (which is usually what I slot it on). Yes I do that too.

You can always have your heals on a different hero, but that doesn't mean that your BiPer would get healed on time when he needs it either. Having heals on the BiPer, helps to prioritize heals to himself more often, the BiPer is usually the one who has the lowest hp in the team during combat.

Furthermore, you can only flag 3 heroes individually so with 2 healers in my team, I have the option to flag my ST hero, my BiPer(healer 1), and my Channeling (healer 2) hero behind and out of immediate danger, when I anticipate a tough fight next.

It's all fine and dandy for VQs, but BiP isn't a good choice for Elite locations. Casters will immediately pick up on the large health loss and blow up the poor Necro. Besides, now you are spending an Elite just to open up Utility on the Eles (not to mention creating a possible need to flag Heroes every fight). It's all just so clumsy. It is not so bad and you don't have to flag heroes before every fight but you have to know what you are doing.

The elite is OP in the sense that it super-charges your casters instead of waiting for their energy to regen. Your DPS would go up and your healers would be able to heal more too over a shorter span of time. Depending on the build, it can be a worthwhile risk for the added power to your mesmer team.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say BiP "supercharges" your casters. How does the DPS and healing go up in regards to it's use?

My verdict is that Eles still just aren't worth it if you are min/maxing. Armor ignoring damage does equal DPS without all the hassle. Eles have been made more viable for VQ's, and that's a good thing, but they haven't shifted anything in my top lineup. I think the Bip, no Bip argument gets us a little off topic. Eles needing that to make the grade would automatically get disqualified imho.

I've toyed with teams using bips...I never saw this great boost. They are almost essential for a good Urgoz or Deep run though.

I'm still in the solid AID (armor ignore) section. Searing flames is nice now, but the heros are kinda dumb in using it. No way does it outpower a GoGM rit or a Esurge mesmer.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say BiP "supercharges" your casters. How does the DPS and healing go up in regards to it's use? With BiP, you don't need your mesmers to carry so many e-management skills on their bar, so you can bring more damage skills, thus increasing DPS. @Vernphos: I.e. you need to adjust your build, replacing more e-management skills with damage skills, to see the boost.

Also, I don't know if you have noticed, if your mesmers are low on energy, they usually just wand and wait for their energy to regen which lowers their DPS. Power Drain is great, but it is conditional e-management.

As for healers, more energy means more chance to spam healing spells, should be obvious why BiP enables that since the amount of life sac from a cast of BiP is miniscule compared to the life boosts from the extra energy provided by BiP to heal.

It doesn't matter how long the fights are, the energy slowly dwindles from fight to fight until you need to take a regen break.

The in-house Ele E-Management barely breaks even for use with Ele spells; there's no room for utility unless you want to exacerbate the issue. Invoke was the (only) exception, and it still barely squeaked by. Eles are forced to run /Me (or Spirit Siphon) for additional management on top of the garbage 2-4 skills already required. Basically, your Eles are stuck stepping on the toes of Mesmers with bases that are already covered by said Mesmers. The other option is to run Blood Ritual, which isn't superb, or BiP, which is downright suicidal (esp. since it would most likely be on the healer).

You have to fold yourself in half, then turn yourself inside out just to provide the class with enough energy to do what other classes can do without the aid.

Summary of issues:
- Eles need to look for out-of-class energy management to be able to sport Utility. This leaves them with Channeling (Rit), Inspiration (Mes), and Smiting (Monk). Most parties already run a Rit, so Channeling is redundant. Inspiration E-Management will step on the toes of other Mesmers in the party (too many interrupts is bad). Smiting is alright, but screws with high returns on Glyph of Lesser Energy with all it's 5 energy spells.
- Eles need 3+ skills on a bar dedicated strictly for E-Management. Anything less will result in a net loss of energy and require idle time.
- Eles are completely screwed by interrupts or dying targets. They get 0 of the 30% attunement return. They are punished for losing and they are punished for winning.
- Eles energy management is strippable. It also doesn't pay for itself until about 2-4 casts under the effect.
- Due to the nature of a % return of energy costs, Ele E-Management fundamentally cannot net gain energy; it only prevents the caster from losing energy faster. Only when you combine Glyph of Lesser Energy (still a 100% reduction in cost, no gain) and an attunement will you net anything. The single energy returning spell in each elemental line blows valuable -cost on GoLE. Ele E-Management requires all these skills, then proceeds to get tangled up in them, trips, and hangs itself. Luckly, the skills that the E-Management is hanging from are crappy, so they break. The E-Management suffocates instead.
- Heroes are stupid. They cast without Attunements up, they use 5 energy spells with GoLE, and they think using Churning Earth on a single foe is acceptable. They miss Glowing Gaze, can't cover important enchantments, and ultimately fail at everything in every possible dimension.

I'm sure there's more but I'm running out of hours for sleep. If anyone at Anet cared about my opinions, I'd fix Ele heroes right up into great competitive PvE choices, but alas, as much as my pride DIES to say this, I am not so important. :P Probably solve a lot of Eles issues if they change Energy Storage Attribute and make it more suited to Elementalists, high energy doesn't mean squat when got no energy management go with it, Soul Reaping is awsome energy management, Expertise also too, and now Dervish got nice decent energy management with there spells. Change seems could do is have energy % reduction with Energy Storage like did with Dervish.

Probably solve a lot of Eles issues if they change Energy Storage Attribute and make it more suited to Elementalists, high energy doesn't mean squat when got no energy management go with it, Soul Reaping is awsome energy management, Expertise also too, and now Dervish got nice decent energy management with there spells. Change seems could do is have energy % reduction with Energy Storage like did with Dervish. Or they could just make Energy Storage give back a % of the energy used and get rid of the clumsy attunements and save us an extra spot on the skill bar.

"Good enough" for VQ's, sure, but I'd still like to bring them to Elite locations without feeling like I'm gimping myself. And therein lies the rub...I have not put an ele together that does not feel suboptimal.

Player eles for sure got a boost with this...heros? Well i think they are not idiot(ai) proof yet...

I always take BiP in my caster 7H parties, and never have any problems with it. Its certainly not suicidal, even if brought on a resto healer (which is usually what I slot it on). The problem with BIP isn't that it's dangerous, but IMO, that it takes up an elite slot. These days, elites are so much more powerful than they were at the beginning of the game, that taking an elite skill that only does e-management - almost assuredly results in less DPS.

A somewhat contrived example: would you rather take 3 E-surge mesmers or 2 eles and 1 BiP? I think the answer is pretty clear.

As long as Ele E-Management remains so clumsy, armor ignoring damage will be better. Yes, I totally agree. Kaida's posts are very spot on with all of the elementalist issues. Right now it is far easier to throw a necro in your party who gets soul reaping which does NOT cost using any slots on their skills bars. Right now eles have to rely on such things like attunements which I don't like because they are enchantments, can be stripped, cost a skill slot.... etc. You use the attunement once every 60 seconds and the rest of the time it's a waste of a skill. You can bring a necro with BiP, but once again it's using a skill slot (and this time the elite slot) for energy management, which can be handled by soul reaping as a necro. Not to mention it can get the necro agro and killed. Those wasted skill slots for energy management could be filled with support for the group making them viable.

I think changing the elementalist Energry Storage attribute could work, as someone suggested above. As long as the % back you get from spells casted isn't limited to elementalist spells only. And on second thought it could even be a certain % for elementalist skills and like a lesser % for all other skills.

Let's hope the 2nd part of the elementalist update addresses energy management. Right now I am just not seeing any reason to use them.

What am I trying to say? For taking up 3+ skills on your bar, Ele energy management is still pretty messy and lacks optimization. Every skill has it's draw backs, but an Ele's energy management's drawbacks are drawbacks for every other Ele energy management skill (say that 5 times fast). All these skills are required to do the same thing that one or two skills (and/or primaries) do on every other class.

TLDR:
Yes, you can make Ele energy management good by throwing a ton of skills and possibly an Elite at them, but why bother when another class can apply an equal amount of damage much more effectively/efficiently and support (stronger) Utility at the same time? This is the overall issue. Energy management takes up skills on the skill bar for every profession except (and sometimes including) Necro. Attunements are vulnerable to removal, but then they provide passive returns. The other professions can't deal more damage AND support stronger utility at the same time, or if they can, they can't be stacked (MM, spirits).

The problem with BIP isn't that it's dangerous, but IMO, that it takes up an elite slot. These days, elites are so much more powerful than they were at the beginning of the game, that taking an elite skill that only does e-management - almost assuredly results in less DPS.

A somewhat contrived example: would you rather take 3 E-surge mesmers or 2 eles and 1 BiP? I think the answer is pretty clear. Saying that BiP is an elite that "only does e-management" really doesn't do the skill justice. While it's true that BiP does no direct damage, it enhances the damage output of your other team members in two different ways:

1) It ensures that they will always have the energy to use their skills.

2) It allows them to bring more skills for damage in place of their own e-management skills.

The first point is self-explanatory, but to elaborate some on the second, if I bring two Domination Mesmers in my team, normally each of them will have to set aside skill slots for Power Drain and WNWN, or else risk running out of energy. With a BiP in the team, I don't have to bring these skills on either of the Mesmers, and can instead use these 4 opens slots for Shatter Enchantment, Spiritual Pain, Power Spike, or whatever else I want. The skills in these slots can compensate for, or even surpass, the damage most other elites could provide for the team. Because of that, you can't automatically assume that using BiP for your elite is going to lower your DPS. Depending on how you utilize BiP, it's completely possible for the opposite to be true.

I'm sort of neutral about Ele e-management. On one hand, it would be nice if it came in a more consistent form, but on the other, Eles have plenty of powerful, high-cost skills that essentially rely on energy limitations to keep them balanced. If I could take Searing Flames on a hero bar with 2 e-management skills and not run into energy problems (the way I can take E-surge on a Mesmer bar with PD and WNWN), it would probably break the meta. Since I need to take 3-4 skills to manage energy, it keeps the Ele's bar from completely overshadowing the damage output of other classes. Meanwhile, if you're using skills without such a high cost, you usually only need to bring an attunement and a move like Glowing Gaze to keep energy up. You get less raw power, but you have more damage skills at your disposal. Two e-management skills seems reasonable to me.

Overall, I wouldn't be unhappy to see Ele e-management improve, but if it's going to happen, it needs to be done carefully. I think that energy is one of the only factors keeping Ele damage in check at this point (the other being the elemental resistances of different monsters), and if you make their energy management too efficient, they'll start crowding other classes out of the meta.

The problem with BIP isn't that it's dangerous, but IMO, that it takes up an elite slot. These days, elites are so much more powerful than they were at the beginning of the game, that taking an elite skill that only does e-management - almost assuredly results in less DPS.

A somewhat contrived example: would you rather take 3 E-surge mesmers or 2 eles and 1 BiP? I think the answer is pretty clear. What Soryuju said. BiP opens up more than 1 skill slot for DPS skills on your mesmers, instead of e-management. Also note that my caster merc build has 4 mesmers. I save about 1 e-management skill slot for each of them, converting a total of 4 skill slots from e-management into DPS skills. I don't see how that would be a step backwards for DPS.

Also, there is really no obvious good elite for a restore necro, which is where I place my BiP. Well nowadays there is Icy Veins, but I would reserve my judgement until I have tested it.

Energy management takes up skills on the skill bar for every profession except (and sometimes including) Necro. Attunements are vulnerable to removal, but then they provide passive returns. The other professions can't deal more damage AND support stronger utility at the same time, or if they can, they can't be stacked (MM, spirits). As a precursor, I would like to mention that I am speaking about Heroes and their options. Players can obvious support a larger portion of Elementalist builds more effectively because they have infinitely better judgement (well, in most cases) than Heroes ever will, and that in itself it's the biggest energy management a class can have.

It goes without saying that every class requires energy management, however, when you consider what it requires to power an elementalist vs. any other class, the clumsiness of the aforementioned class starts becoming quite clear. They require more skills that are less effective and are mostly limited to Elementalist skills or certain skill types. Three of the main 4 skills used to power Eles are passive, and passive is a word that has NEVER mixed well when combined with Guild Wars (Hexway in GvG, Healing in general, VoD builds in GvG, etc.)

Invoke was the only effective Elementalist build that allowed a large choice in secondary Utility options. Any other choices that were equally as damaging were ONLY damaging because you couldn't bring any Utility without murdering the Hero's E-Management.

The classes that can supply equal damage [with the Ele] and utility at the same time are diverse enough that a player never needs to overlap them. For example:
Slot 1: Channeling/Restoration Ritualist
Slot 2: Communing Spirit Spam Rit
Slot 3: Minion Master/Protter
Slot 4: E-Surge Mesmer (One example of a class build that can be overlapped in small numbers)
Slot 5: E-Surge Mesmer
That leaves two slots. All of these listed have simple, reliable energy management and bring some combination of damage and utility that make them incredible choices. Invoke was the only build that could ever contend for a spot in a lineup like that.
What makes it worse is that, for example: For VQ's, a player would want to bring at least two copies of "Fall Back!" and possibly even "Stand Your Ground!". The Mesmers could run it, but then you lose some damage. Ideally, the last two slots would bring it. Elementalists have just been DQ'd from the lineup. Glowing Gaze is the only E-Management that would even remotely support those two skills, since GoLE, Attunement, and AoR don't work with them. You could run an E-Management Elite to support them, but then you lose damage. Looks like it'll be two more Mesmers (Inept, Keystone?) who can keep equal damage and supply the Utility we need.

Insult to injury is the fact that Ele in-house Utility is garbage as well. Most of it is just anti-melee/phys, which Enfeebling Blood alone covers just as well as any Ele skill will, esp. given it's non-elite status.

It's just SO messy. I want to use Ele's. I really do. But it just feels bad. It's why I'm hoping the non-elite skills either:
1. Provide some more Energy options or
2. Bump the Ele up into the highest damage class (with sacrificed Utility)